P3 DDR Review

[mpjesse]

If your all waiting to see what DDR can do for P3's, go here: http://www.xbitlabs.com/mainboards/apollo-pro266.html

It's faster in some things (a P3 w/ PC2100 DDR) and slower in others. It does however dominate the bandwidth benches.

-MP Jesse

 

[Crashman]

Oh, great-with all these post about how AMD systems are having problems with VIA chipset motherboards, now suddenly we want to curse the PIII sector with VIA chipsets-NOT!

Suicide is painless...........

 

[mpjesse]

Boy, you certainly have a dim look on things. Don't i remember Intel effectively scrapping RDRAM for P3's because of the MTH problem? Yeah... it was on national news.

The reason people "seem" to be having problems with the VIA chipsets and Athlons is because they don't really know what they are doing. I personally think VIA makes the most reliable chipsets.

-MP Jesse

 

[Grizely1]

Man, just think.... someday that will be AMD on the news (not the news of having problems though, of course

 

[mpjesse]

I can't wait =)

-MP Jesse

 

[Crashman]

Hey, I don't care much for Intel either as a company, but there are few people who actually build both that could ligitamately make that arguement-people know that the best chipset ever made in the history of the world was the BX, and the 815E is a close second in performance and offers more features and ultimate stability. Nobody into serious computers uses the low-perf 810 (sort of the VIA of Intel chipsets!), the MTH issue only affects the 820 with SDRAM, but anyone buying a computer with the 820 is dropping enough cash for RDRAM anyway. Since the only current high-perf Intel chipset that competes directly with the VIA in the marketplace is the 815E, you have to compare that one. And any VIA is a sore looser to the 815E in such things as hard drive interface performance, AGP performance, compatability, stability, and until the DDR board, Memory. If Intel was smart enough to come out with a DDR chipset for the PIII, it would outperform the nes VIA in memory too. Other chipsets are on their way right now, so this comparison will be a real issue before the new VIA even puts a ding in the market. And if VIA was to fall into the ocean it would be the best thing to happen for the industry in 10 years.

Suicide is painless...........

 

[Ncogneto]

Crashman, the only reason the I815 chipset exists is because intel was getting there a$$ kicked. Thier failure in forcing their devoted followers such as your self to purchase RDRAM was probably one of the biggest goofups they have ever made. The chipsets that followed out of this RDRAM hypocrisy were some of the worst performers ever. If AMD hadn't come onto the scene with there Athlon we all would still be stuck with that RDRAM crapola. The pure thought of what they tried to pull off with that whole sceem should make even you sick. Intel themselves is hoping that VIA makes a dam good chipset for there processors now for the fact intel has sold there sole to the devil (RAMBUS) and has to have third party chipmakers to offer an alternative to sue happy (hey why actually build something when you can rip it off and then sue people) RAMBUS. The bx was one of the best chipsets ever made but its time is running out. the intel zx and lx chipsets wern't all that hot though.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!

 

[mpjesse]

OH, so if Intel suddenly lost all it's competition it would be good? That's what your saying. No, it would not be good. It'd be bad for Intel and the industry. Point and case: AMD and Intel. For a while, Intel had NOO competition... so all we had on the market was Intel CPU's... I'm talking about the era of the P5 and P55C. Sure Cyrix and AMD made some chips, but who used them in the manufacturer business (Gateway, Dell, etc). No one. Now Intel is threatened with AMD and we're finally seeing some MAJOR developments in chip design. Why you ask? Competition.

Also, if VIA jumped ship, intel would have a monopoly on the chipset market for Intel CPU's. They could do whatever the hell they wanted to- sorta like M$ Raise prices, make slow chipsets, etc.

RDRAM is about to die- unless they start making DDR RAM. Why else would Intel develop their OWN DDR chipset? Intel HAS to allow VIA to develop DDR chipsets for the P4 and P3 to survive.

-MP Jesse

 

[Crashman]

Hey, now we have a good discusion going! As for being a follower, no, I'm just a user. I converted plenty of people to AMD's back when the K6-2 was a good chip-my K6-III took all commers when it came to Intel. And then came Rambus. Because of so many problems with VIA chipsets at the time, I almost put together a PII 450 on the almost perfect BX chipset. So I would never have swallowed the Rambus line, as so many "followers" did. Furthermore, if you'd been around here long enough you would have seen plenty of post where I admit that AMD makes a more powerful processor. But VIA still sucks. I built my PIII system for compatability first, stability second, performance third, and it still outperforms most equally equiped Athlon systems in 3D Mark 2000, the only test I even bother to run as a gamer. But the Athlons should be able to waste my system, so why don't they? VIA, of coarse.
Now, MPJesse would believe that I want to eliminate competition for Intel-Wrong again, I love what competition does for the marketplace. And if VIA were to cease to exist it would be easier for other companies to rise up to fill in the void. Companies that try to do a better job. Companies that seem to care more about their sutomers and their reputation. Companies that, because of VIA's dominence, have either gone out of business, dropped their chipsets, or sold out. One of the companies left that could EASILY do a better job than VIA if they had the resources is ALI. ALI needs a larger share of the marketplace right now in order to justify increasing their developement. And none of the ALI system I have built have had nearly the problems of VIA. VIA has become the Microsoft of chipsets for the AMD fans, like it or not they have practically no other choice, so they choose to support them. I will be building an AMD system in a few months if the new ALI, Micron, or nVidia chipset prove to be as compatable and stable as my 815E. We'll see. If I were an Intel follower, I would build a P4, but I already know that they are not as good as an Athlon or PIII at the same speed. But unless the replacement P4 is much better than the current one, it will be Athlon time for me. And if chipset developement still has not progressed to my expectations, I will just get a faster processor for my current system.

Suicide is painless...........

 

[Ncogneto]

One has to be carefull when only applying one benchmark when comparing across platforms. 3dmark2000 acts much like a game and it all depends on its optimizations (ie. its ssme2 optimized better than it is amd3dnow optimized) While being a very handy tool and charting your progress on tweaking your individual system, to make a statement saying that the p3 is better than the athlon (or their subsequent chipsets for that matter)based solely on one benchmark is a bit of a misnomer. This is why Tom uses several benchtests and we see variences in performance across platforms with each individual test. While your p3 system may give you a better score using 3dmark2000 this may not be the case at all when playing your favorite game. Admittably via chipsets at first were shaky at best they have come along way and have finally approached intel in terms of stability. In the meantime intel chipsets themselves have seemed to underachieve. while the I815 is a nice chipset, it was only marginally better than a chipset 4 years older than it. Though definatly not all, alot of via's problem's are caused by the fact simply that windose just did not support them as well as they did intell chipsets. This however is/has changed as for the fact that via now outproduces intell and is the number one chipset maker (we are talking quantity here). Of course you will see alot more post's with via chipset problems then you will Intell chipsets, this is easily explained by the fact that hobbiest building computers are much more likely to make there first few attempts at building a computer with price playing a major factor in there purchase. So now you have someone that is just learning how to build a system probably not buying the best via chipset board but the cheapest. This will always lead to problems.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!

 

[mpjesse]

VIA is still awesome =)

-MP Jesse

 

[Tempus]

Depends on who you ask. Crashy is a vigilante against them.

- "I forgot my shirt, but I had body glitter."

 

[mpjesse]

LOL, i know. I've been in many debates with him regarding VIA. I'm just messing with him =)

-MP Jesse

 

[Crashman]

At least I don't just keep cutting and pasting the same message every time like certain hobbits I know..........

Suicide is painless...........